


In Shards

by fxcedown



Category: Horizon: Zero Dawn (Video Game)
Genre: F/M, Hunter - Freeform, Intimacy, Jealousy, Multiple Perspectives, Nil vs Helis, One Shot Collection, Oops was that a spoiler?, War, Was that a Game of Thrones reference?
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-10-14
Updated: 2018-10-14
Packaged: 2019-08-01 23:02:09
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,450
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16293533
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fxcedown/pseuds/fxcedown
Summary: A collection of short stories I've written here and there about Aloy and some of the other characters of Horizon Zero Dawn. They mostly focus on Aloy but won't necessarily be from her perspective, and the primary relationship is Aloy & Nil but along the way I might play around with some others. Some are pre-game, some post final battle. I've put my original work on hold but I hope these will satisfy anyone following A Close Encounter for now.Some follow on from others, some are completely unrelated. I'll add more as I go though, they're just things that have come to mind from time to time. I hope you enjoy them.





	In Shards

**Freckles**

"Nil . . . ?"  
"Mm."  
" . . . What are you- they're freckles Nil, you can't wipe them off."  
"So it is." 

 

**Stalker**

A Stalker. That’s what she’d be if she were a machine. 

Her preferred strategy a ranged assault with deadly accuracy even when her target was moving or at great distances. When the moment required it, she could be just as fierce up close, manoeuvring swiftly and with ferocity. 

Lean body, minimal armouring to favour stealth and speed over strength and protection. Although he didn’t doubt her strength. In more intimate and less violent encounters, she’d proven to him just how strong she could be. 

She was cunning too, patient. Waiting silently, hidden from her victim, withholding that first arrow until the opportune moment, when they’d unknowingly step into the range of her keen eye and steady arm. 

She was deadly. 

But she was mesmerising too. 

 

**Sun and Shadow**

Fire. Burning debris, burning bodies, burning blood in his veins. Clouds of thick, dark smoke blotting out the evening sun which was no more than a bloody circle in the filthied sky. 

The sound of explosions ripping open the earth, metal meeting metal and skin, pierced by the screams of the fallen and battle cries of the vicious. 

Amongst it all a hunter with eyes the colour of a storm prowled hungrily. The scent of blood and the rush of warfare had sent the Carja hunter into an almost feral state.  
He'd lost count of how many had fallen to his arrows and his blade. It didn't take long for his enemies to realise who he was after he'd carved through the first wave of fanatics that had tried to rush him. He'd seen them quaking with fear, stabbing at him desperately as they faced him. They tried to put as much distance as they could from the silver-eyed demon but it only beckoned him closer, quicker, harder. He would not be escaped. 

It took even less time for those who were foolish enough to face him to find the essence of their life seeping into the soil and bricks beneath them. 

One who had been insightful enough to keep his distance had tried to take the hunter down with arrows, striking him in the arm. The hunter responded with a hurled spear through the archer's gut, relishing in their gurgling cries. 

But he was done playing games with amateurs. 

He was making his way to the gladiator that stood on the plains below him. A ring of fallen bodies surrounded him, thick, sticky crimson fanning out in ribbons into the soil.  
"I hoped I'd meet you here." The hunter called down through the cries. The Kestrel withdrew his blade from another soldier, kicking the body to the ground. He looked up to meet the other steel-eyed man. 

_"You."_ With his blade he pointed to the hunter. "Turn your face to the Sun so that I might spill your traitorous blood in the soil!" 

The Carja hunter grinned as he jumped down onto level ground, a foreboding figure emerging from the smoke, blood dripping down his fingers, a trail running from a gash in his brow down his face. The murderous fury in the voice and gaze of his enemy instilled a kind of wild anticipation in the hunter. 

He'd thrown his bow aside long ago; now he brandished his knife to complement the curved blade in his right hand. 

_"Valar morghulis."_ The Carja hunter whispered as his opponent descended on him with all the rage of the sun itself. 

 

**Reverence**

Sundown. Varl thought he'd never felt so relieved to feel the cold beginning to seep in as the warmth of the sun retreated with the light. The smell of smoke and machine oil still hung heavy in the air hours after the battle had been won. It stung his nose and lingered in his throat. Even still, a campfire had been lit, and he sat amongst his kin, replaying the events of the day in his mind. A pile of ridgewood sat by his feet, ready to be preened and carved for arrow shafts. He hardly had enough shards or feathers to dress them but he needed something to keep his restless hands busy. 

Tomorrow morning they would leave for the Embrace. Sun-King Avad had sent down his advisor to persuade their party to remain for the honorary feast that would be held when the sun was at its peak the following day. Sona had told him they would celebrate amongst their own where the company and food were friendlier. Not in those exact words but the old man had gotten the gist. Eventually. 

Varl was relieved. 

He could see it on the face of the remaining Braves as well. 

Although they had lost the initial battle, they had won the war. It had been a vicious, bloody fight. They had lost too many, even with the help of the Oseram Vanguard and the motley assortment of hunters from the Hunter's Lodge that had rallied behind their Sun-Hawk. 

They were all restless to be back on familiar soil. After such violence even after victory, once the anxiety and rush of the battle had died down, the comfort of kin and home called to them, created an aching that pulled at them like strings. 

And they were leagues from the touch of All Mother. Empty didn't even begin to describe the hollow, lost feeling within their bones. 

The air was thicker here too, the sun too close. The light burned their skin, wrapped them in uncomfortable warmth. How the Carja could stand such heat was beyond him. He couldn’t imagine the intensity of it up in the city, on the mesa. 

He thought of Aloy then. How she'd traded her furs and leathers for the metal and silks of the Sun-Worshippers. Distancing herself even more from her tribe, slowly being assimilated into the very one that had ransacked their people for years. She probably knew her way around their city better than she did the villages in the Embrace. 

He thought about the way the Carja soldiers and hunters had sung her name in praise the moment she'd sunk her spear into the metal orb. They probably didn't even know her name before the battle, they probably didn't even care what all of this had meant to her, what she'd been through. Likely had thought she was just another one of the "Savages of the East". They didn't understand just what she was capable of, how big her heart was. All they cared about was that she had kept the machines from destroying the city. 

Their city. That's probably how it was to them. They couldn't care less about the rest of the world, as long as their city flowed as peacefully and as grandly as if nothing had ever happened. Revelling in the grandiosity of needless materials to boast their status to separate themselves from the commonfolk. He pictured the crimson headdresses of the soldiers, their armour plated and weaved to mirror birds. Cocky. That's all they were. 

He wondered if their sudden whole-hearted reverence had anything to do with the likeness of her hair to the god they worshipped so fervently. They'd treat her like an emissary sent by their god, see her like a tool they could use and wield however they pleased. Try to tie her down. Wash the ice from her veins and replace it with the heat of the sun. Dress her up in their silks and parade her around like she was a product of their own making, take her from the lands that raised her. She deserved to be back with her people where they knew who she was. Back with him- 

Suddenly, the branch of ridgewood he'd been carving snapped, being shaved too thin under his lack of focus and shaking hands. Some of the other Braves glanced absently at the noise before returning back to their own business. He threw the broken branch into the grass a few feet away. Standing up, he felt the knots in his tense shoulders. He picked up his spear that he had embedded in the dirt and turned his back on the fire. 

"And where do you think you're running off to?" He heard his War-Chief's voice chasing him. His mother's voice. 

"We need more shards." He said simply without stopping. She asked no more questions of him nor did she send another Brave to accompany him to which he was grateful for.  
If he was to take down some machines to clear his head he hoped it would be in the company of the one person that had occupied his mind so wholly the last few months. 


End file.
